Facebook fixes, outages + Below Radar 📡
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Fixing Facebook
On Thursday, Jason Kint ran a Twitter Space with a range of expert speakers reflecting on the past couple of weeks for our most problematic social platform.
Naturally, the Facebook Whistleblower came up. The consensus seemed to be that Frances Haugen is brave, authoritative and articulate. She performed incredibly well and, from a PR perspective if nothing else, the document release and testimony has been scheduled perfectly.
But the idea that Facebook can be fixed with a regulator – as opposed to alternatives like being broken up – is deeply flawed.
This isn’t to suggest that it’s a whistleblower’s job to propose the perfect solution, but regulation as a solution (RaaS‽) is being discussed because it was raised in the testimony.
Cristina Caffarra raised an excellent point: we’ve seen in Europe that GDPR has been incredibly difficult to enforce because agencies are understaffed. How could a regulator possibly be created to deal with a company the size of Facebook?
One interesting suggestion from Leslie Miley was to adopt a framework where social media companies submit algorithms and other features for regulatory approval before deployment. This could be vulnerable in the same way as merger approvals (see also: Facebook reneging on the promise they wouldn’t merge WhatsApp data), but it’s an intriguing concept nevertheless.
If Facebook was broken up instead of regulated, advertisers would once again have real choice about where to spend their budgets. Facebook and Instagram would be forced to compete on quality, service and price, and it might even benefit other platforms, too.
For more on this, I’d highly recommend this piece by Matt Stoller. It’s a great breakdown of the issues at play, and the monopolistic issues of keeping everything as-is (i.e. appointing a regular):
If there were competition in social media, what would happen? There is a very simple answer. Platforms would compete by differentiating themselves based on safety and privacy. That sounds a bit far-fetched until you realize that that is exactly how Facebook competed with MySpace. Facebook promised it was the safer alternative to the creepy MySpace. Once Facebook bought up all its competition in 2014, it began aggressive surveillance.
It’s incredible to think that Facebook once used better privacy as a point of competition…
Below Radar 📡
On Monday I launched Below Radar.
Lots of business owners and freelancers use Facebook, Instagram, Google and other tracking tech in their business and feel conflicted about it. Below Radar is a space for them to explore ideas, share experiences and work together to reduce our reliance on these companies.
These ideas are things I’ve been thinking about for a while. Last October I wrote about the balance of privacy and marketing, but I’ve also been thinking about the things we’re told about targeted ads and email tracking for open rates and deliverability.
Below Radar to become a place to discuss these topics and find alternative paths.
Serendipitously, I tweeted this a few hours before the Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram outage. This caught the eye of i and Below Radar got a little feature.
There’s more information at belowradar.co.uk, and the Discord has already prompted some interesting discussions.
If you use Facebook or Google in your business and feel conflicted about it, it would be great to see you there.
Absorbing
Interesting links from the web.
Regarding your stupid complaint
Just to lighten the mood, enjoy this letter of rejection from Letters Of Note.
The Facebook Whistleblower Is Heroic… And Terribly Wrong
Ok, yes, I included this earlier, but it’s so good I had to call it out again here. Go on, give it a read.
Google Graveyard
Most of us rely on some third-party apps for work or business, which carries a little risk. Google is one of the most ruthless companies for killing popular apps – this useful site logs apps they’ve deprecated and flags products that are soon to become ex-products.
Scruples
At Scruples, we’re exploring the idea of giving back. We haven’t decided what they format will be yet: it might be setting some time aside for consultancy, diving in for hands-on work or something else.
Do you do something like this in your business? We’d love to hear how people structure this – hit reply and let me know. 🙌
Unoffice Hours
It’s weird to be thinking this far ahead, but there are only a handful of Unoffice Hours sessions between now and the end of the year. The rest of October is fully booked, so there are only six sessions until I take a break in December (12 calls in total).
If you’d like to chat before the year end, now’s a good time to book.
If you run an Unoffice Hours, you might want to join the Unoffice Hours Webring.
If you have related links that might be of interest, or thoughts on any of these topics, I’d love to hear from you: just hit reply.
Until next time,
Dave